Sunday, January 9, 2011

7 Jan 2011 on the Lower Yuba

Took one of my buddies for a float on the Lower Yuba Friday as I needed to see what the river was looking like as I have some trips coming up out there. The word from YCWA on the flows is that they are going to try to keep the flows around 3000cfs as long as they can - meaning as long as a big storm doesn't rage in. Deer Creek continues to drop though very slowly, it is now 190cfs. Water clarity is an issue. I would say that there is about a 1'-1.5' visibility - kinda mocha brown no real green yet. When I put the boat in the color was the "well we'll see how this goes" tint...boarder line for me to guide but fine to take a buddy fishing.

At 3000cfs I would probably not go wade the river. We didn't get outta the boat more than once or twice to wade fish and didn't catch a fish off the bank. The water is well into the willows and the river is moving pretty good so if you do go wade be careful. We managed to land about 7-8 fish and lost about the same. Most of the fish came in what I call high water spots. Once the river gets down around 2500 most of the normal spots will be fishable again but at 3000cfs the river is up in the willows and I find I am forced to fish some very different water. We fished eggs, rubber legs, san jaun worms, and big copper johns. Most of the fish we caught were on eggs and rubber legs. We fished much longer drops from our indicator and about twice as much weight as normal. I think as the clarity improves fishing will improve as well. That said another storm is coming in at the end of the week so who knows what is gonna happen. Realistically the river could blow out again. Over and out

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